


It's Little I Care What Path I Take

by jellyfishline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean POV, Depression, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:00:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2555510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds himself in the men’s room of a shitty bar somewhere off the interstate, elbows braced on the damp well-beaten countertop, picking glass out of his palm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Little I Care What Path I Take

**Author's Note:**

> It's little I care what path I take,  
> And where it leads it's little I care;  
> But out of this house, lest my heart break,  
> I must go, and off somewhere.
> 
> It's little I know what's in my heart,  
> What's in my mind it's little I know,  
> But there's that in me must up and start,  
> And it's little I care where my feet go.
> 
> _Departure_ , by Edna St.Vincent Millay

He finds himself in the men’s room of a shitty bar somewhere off the interstate, elbows braced on the damp well-beaten countertop, picking glass out of his palm.

He knows that events lead him here—choices were made, roads were taken—but somehow they feel distant, gray. Blood falls in fat clumping streams around the shards. It’s sticky, red, stinging. Real.

A large shard of glass slips free. Dean curses at the shudder of pain in his hand, surprised he can still make sound. The buzzed-out lights give a sepia look to his skin, but they still pick out the Christmas-card sparkle of glitter and blood.

He turns on the taps. Lets the water flow down his hand until the rust is wiped from his skin.

Dad wouldn’t be proud. Not if he could see Dean now, licking his wounds alone in the dark. He’d say, shoulda seen him coming. Shoulda known it was two guys not one. Shoulda been faster.

He’d say, shouldn’t be in a bar when you can’t even make rent.

And yeah he’s right. Yeah, Dean shouldn’t have ever been in this place. But that don’t change what is. What is, is hunger and glass and blood and piss and vinegar. What is, is that Dean forgets, sometimes, how to handle the air in his lungs. He chokes when there’s nothing to choke on. He looks at his hands and sees the skeleton under the skin. There is dirt on him. It weighs him down. He dreams of sleeping. Sometimes in earth.

Beer helps. Well not really, but at least it gives him a reason to fall flat on his ass. Beer and loud music and cigarette smoke and a pretty girl or two. Loud, crowded, sweaty. Real.

Used to be Dean didn’t go to these places, unless he was hustling pool or looking for some other way to make a quick buck. Used to be, Dean had other things to do with his time. He just can’t for the life of him remember what they were.

Or maybe he can. Maybe he can but doesn’t want to know. A lot of things had to do with Sam.

Sam waiting at the motel for Dean to get back. Sam staying up to wait for Dean. Sam needing dinner. Sam needing someone to watch out for him. Sam needing.

But Sam doesn’t need any more. So.

Dean turns off the tap. Bloody water drips into the sink.

“Now what,” he says, lips forming, not saying, the words. He thinks he’s alone, but he’s not testing it.

Now what. The answer is obvious.

Get some paper towels and stop the bleeding. Stop whining. Stop thinking.

…but not too much. Not thinking enough was what got you here in the first place. Think a little bit. Think long enough to get some goddamn paper towels.

They fall off the roller with a _shhh._ They cram into Dean’s hand with a rough sandpapery scrape. Probably they aren’t sanitary, but it’s close enough.

He presses. Squeezes. Closes his eyes to feel it. Stinging and rough sandpaper. Real.

He keeps forgetting what’s real. Keeps forgetting that he’s not as dead as he thinks he is.

He opens his eyes. Almost catches himself in the mirror before he remembers to look away. There’s real, and then there’s the kind of real that takes out his lungs and fills them with soil. If he could peel off his face and never have to look in another mirror again the rest of his life, he would. In a heartbeat.

Maybe he’s not looking for real. Maybe real is actually too hard to swallow.

Real is the last twenty bucks tucked into his jeans. Real is Dad’s leather jacket judging him in the corner of his eye. Real is hunger in his gut.

Real is living and living and living.

Maybe he’d rather be sleeping.

He throws the paper towels away. The trash is full, almost overflowing. He wonders if there’s more bloody rags in there than just his. Wonders if anyone called the cops on him.

He should get out of here.

He doesn’t plan on coming back.


End file.
